The Office Curmudgeon

This evening I attended the Everything Must Change Tour, presented (I supposed), by Deep Shift. I live-tweeted the event, if that’s what you call it, which was my first attempt at using Twitter. It was very one-directional, as I did it through my cell phone and didn’t have device updates on. New guy – my bad.

I registered for the event late last year after hearing of it somehow. My wife and I had heard Brian McLaren speak at one other occasion, knew he was associated with this, so we signed up. It wasn’t cheap – $75+ per person at early bird price, but if you got in on the early bird deal you got a copy of Everything Must Change, one of McLaren’s books. Oh, and it ended up you got a compact fluorescent after showing up. “Yeah. Check out my totally enviro-friendly bling, yo. 1200 lumens for only 20 watts dawg.” So you got swag for $75. Not all bad.

I had a creepy feeling about the event from the time I registered though because of some of the language surround the event. To be perfectly blunt, it felt very bleeding-heart, tree-hugger, all we need is love … ish. Oh well, at the very least it’ll be a good experience for my wife and I. This feeling was intensified after getting to our seats and thumbing through the handouts. Let me extend this feeling to you by way of quoting some of the material:

…. Therefore we will practice ‘listening one another into free speech,’ ‘building bridges of empathy,’ ‘creating safe spaces,’ and other strategies of revolutionary communication.

When I see or hear ___ I feel ___, because my need for ___ is/is not being met. Would you be willing to ___.

When you said ___, I felt ___. Can you understand why I would feel that way?

A short commentary: Umm – Wow. 1. Revolutionary? Really? Seriously? 2. I’m building my bridge of empathy to solitude, and I don’t care where your bridge goes. 3. If I “felt” that much all the time, I’d be in therapy, or I’d be a woman. (I do not mean any offense to women, I am just a guy that’s all. But if that made you feel ___ because it was ___, I would suggest ___. No ___ intended.)

During one of the discussion times, I met Al. Al asked me what I thought of this so far. (Thus far we had experienced good music, a Sierra Club video, and some speaking by Linnea Nilsen Capshaw.) I admitted I had little expectation, not doing any research about it beforehand, but felt “like it was a bunch of liberal stuff.” Al gave me a concerned look, a nod, and agreed.

Brian McLaren spoke. He’s a good presenter, and a good speaker, so you can’t go too wrong. One thing I like about Brian is that he loves circles. Two dimensional circles. The man can explain anything he needs using circles, usually three or four … and maybe a box. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but that was ok because I wasn’t supposed to. He told us that before he started, and I happened to agree with him about that, and some other things too.

We broke into another discussion time to talk about our thoughts and feelings, and Al turns around to me and states, “Yeah, I’m afraid you were right. He is off base, and just wrong about ….” Unfortunately, Al and I were on the same page. This wasn’t the McLaren we knew, and to my initial concern; McLaren was veering hard left toward the target audience.

Overall, the evening was OK. The music was great, McLaren wasn’t at his best, and the evening was much like a sub-standard worship service. If I didn’t get books and swag, I would have been very disappointed. My wife tolerated it. That is to say she didn’t go postal on me, but sternly said I owe her something in return that is better than ice cream. She and I agreed that the time progressed much like a mainline worship service. Singing, greeting, prayer, shake some hands, singing, listen to preaching, prayer, singing, benediction. There was more discussion thrown in than usual. Oh – we did miss communion, but it wasn’t the first weekend of the month.

It may sound like I’m vehemently against the left, but I am really not. I have some liberal views that get me chastised, and I’m fine with that. I just take the extreme left less seriously. You kind of have to, because when they state in the materials that Brian will intentionally avoiding using male pronouns when referring to God because the bible reflects God in feminine images as well as masculine; you have to call that out. At what point were all those “He” references misleading? Did I miss it when Jesus pulled out, “whoops, I meant Mother, not Father. My bad.”

Regardless, we’re attending tomorrow’s morning session as well, and Pania (that’s my wife) is even going with me when I expected her to bail. If tomorrow is blog-worthy, I’ll post about my experience.

Yesterday in Resurrection’s staff chapel, the message was given by a congregant who detailed how he and his wife visited Resurrection, got connected, and started an amazing God-inspired journey. Without going into the detail of his entire story; it was quite good; one thing he said stuck me and got me thinking. When describing his first visit to Resurrection he stated, ” … and they seemed like they actually cared that we were there [that day].”

What struck me about that statement was the simplicity. Somebody cared that they were there. I immediately thought back through my journey of visiting churches. …. He’s right. At most churches my wife and I would visit, the people other than the “assigned greeter” and the staff did not care if we were visiting. By a very high majority, the other people of the church had come to church only for themselves, and were not interested, maybe even scared, of making us feel welcomed.

And I don’t let myself the hook so easy either. I’m a confessed computer geek and introvert. I’d rather develop a web application than walk up to strangers and strike up a conversation. ;-( But sometimes when I walk into church, I need to forget myself, remember my assignment, and follow Christ.

So now I’m thinking the root problem with The Church is an epidemic spiritual decline. Too many churches are developing immature Christians who never grow into a state of following Christ. Primarily people start going to church to satisfy themselves, and it should be the job of that church to stimulate growth from that stage to the next – going to church for someone else. It seems ironic that a religion rooted in a truth that the life of Christ was not lived for himself but for everyone else, that we have such a hard time teaching Christians to live not only for themselves.

Although I have not read a word of Reveal, I have heard many Resurrection staff talking about its message. Time for me to do some reading perhaps.

Thanks to those for their comments on my previous and related post.

Well, I posted on the topic for two reasons. 1. There is much disagreement about it, and 2. I hope readers will do their own research and reach their own decision.

I read Kim’s post that Bob referred to, and I’ll say that Kim is very well written.

In my heart, I still believe that paying money to see the movie is making a donation to the cause of an atheist who targets children in attempt to sway them away from God. If you pay your money to see the movie, keep in mind this may be exactly what your doing.

I think this world would be better served, if rather than seeing this movie, people donated $10 and one and three quarter hours to a local mission. Spend quality time with someone who desperately needs it.

I also think using an inherently atheist tool to teach anyone about who God is or is not seems a dangerous method. Go battle the materialistic idolatry of the world, not an image of God that represents those things. Let G-o-d be as He always is.

Lastly, I’ll say that my position on this was formed from the references I mentioned, and other additional resources. I hope you read the posts and their comments, do your own research, and feel better informed to make your own decision.

I’m assuming most of you have heard of movie ‘The Golden Compass’ by now, since it has made the morning news, at least here in Kansas City. My thanks go to Phillip Pullman for giving me something to blog about.

I first heard about this movie through a chain e-mail referencing snopes.com. Earlier this week my wife saw the trailer on television and said, “Ooo. We have to go see that!” I messed up and in a knee jerk reaction said, “No, we’re not.” Doh! Yeah … that doesn’t work with my wife. So I get the look, we “discuss,” and I try to explain how the writer is a devoted atheist who purportedly targets children in attempt to “kill God” in their minds. She argued that it was just a fantasy movie, and no worse than The Devinci Code, which we did watch. It’s just a movie. Hmm. I still disagree on some levels, but she has a point in whether or not we go watch the movie.

So after this morning’s newscast mentioning it, I was pushed to learn why an Archbishop would support the movie, which has been touted as “anti-Catholic.” Williams even goes so far as to say the book should be taught in schools! I found this online article. Wow. What a world we live in where educators are trying to throw religion out of schools, and Archbishops are trying to get atheism in them.

Now, little of this seems to be hearsay, if you believe the sources and the source’s sources. So why on earth would you condone and support a movie “watered down … so as not to offend faithful moviegoers in the United Kingdom and United States” thats center is in an anti-religious theme written by a professed atheist whos purpose in life is to convince children that God is false?!?!? All for the sake of keeping an open mind? Wha … bu … huh?

Ultimately, no one is going to affect whether or not people go see the movie. For the first time though, I find myself with pretty strong convictions to boycott this movie. It is just a movie, but I can’t rationalize away the guilt I’d feel by supporting it.